The Mets announced today that they will reduce the height of Citi Field's center field wall prior to the 2010 season. Ostensibly, the reason for the 16-foot to 8-foot reduction is to help make up for the Mets massive power outage in Cit Field's first season, which saw the team drop from 172 homers in 2008 to just 95 in 2009. As Matt Cerrone points out at Metsblog, though, things aren't that cut and dried for the Mets. The team actually hit more homers at home than on the road and David Wright, who saw his home run total drop from 33 to 10 last season, hits the majority of his homers to left and left-center field where the walls will remain 12-15 feet high. New left fielder Jason Bay has decent power to all fields, but his big jump in home runs in 2009 (he hit a career high 36 after hitting 31 in 2008 and 21 in 2007) was mostly attributable to Fenway Park's Green Monster-created short left field porch.
That's not to downplay Citi Field's casting as a pitcher's park; Baseball-Reference lists its park factor in 2009 as 98/98 (under 100 is a pitcher's park), which grades out as slightly more pitcher-friendly than Shea Stadium. It is certainly a pitcher's park, just not as dramatically so as the precipitous drop in Mets home runs might indicate. As anyone that watched the Mets play last year could tell you, they had much bigger problems than the wall height at Citi Field.
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To make things fair they're going to put the walls back to the original height when the visiting team bats.